I took a little hiatus at Skittles last month to go to Penland School of Crafts. It feels great to be back in the city once again, especially because our insane little darkwave queer party Skittles is on this Friday night.

The theme this month: Goths in the Sun. Vaseline in the sand. Blood in the water. OMG, its a gothic beach party- who said black isn’t a summer color? Wear your smeared eyeliner and dark beachwear to The Outpost on August 7th!

We spin a lovely assortment of beloved and obscure new wave, synth and post-punk for your dancing pleasures.

I’ll be DJing at this new party in Brooklyn. DJ Jeffo! will be spinning as well, which I am quite excited about. He spins at the Wierd party and a bunch of other good things. Should be a blast! Cheep beer and people (as Casey put it). Flyer by yours truly.

Listen here to Moonface Mike
Tell you all what it was like
To light the sky not so long ago
Not so long ago
In crimson red hills so dead
Sands that bled in burning red
New Mexico

See the rednecks watch the skies
Flying saucers myths and lies
Myths and lies
Snakes are rattling on the ground
Wriggling into what they’ve found
Gouged-out holes of ripped-out eyes
See the rednecks watch the skies
In the megadeath birthplace
The megadeath birthplace
New Mexico

The White Sands of time
Are losing face, running down and going slow
In the Land of Enchantment
The Land of Enchantment
New Mexico
-from “New Mexico” Oppenheimer Analysis 1982

Music with politically subversive content typically remains within the ghettos of the punk rock and protest folk music genres. Though it has been known to radicalize many a white suburban angst-ridden teenager, the revolutionary content tends to remain within its subculture. I guess I tend to think of bands like Crass where, damn, they sure were wonderful but I feel like there are so many people out there who will never hear their witty political lyrics and possibly decide to join an anarchist collective.

I’ve always been a peripheral part of the anarchist punk scene though I generally dislike the music for its lack of musical creativity, I love the message and the people involved. My dream, which I have wanted more than anything, is to one day uncover my beautiful little planet that will be a politically radical synth-pop wonderland (and it’s not the Erasure album). Really. And I have my heart set on creating it if it doesn’t exist.

Why are there so few political synth bands? Why do they just sing about love or other abstractions? It drives me crazy. I feel like a lot of recent electronic bands branched off of new wave which branched off of punk back in the late seventies but the message got lost somewhere along the way. I guess back then most of the creative groups, if they made it into the eighties, were snagged by record labels when new wave became popular. They were then churned into pop-vomit by 1982. Those bands spawned tons of others who made some incredible songs with some unfortunately vapid lyrics. They are great to dance to but wouldn’t a song with lyrics highlighting the roots of our oppression be even better? Why not explore the wellspring of our sadness and disappointment, that which inspires the gloomy synthetic beats and makes you want to wear torn lace and leather. Let’s go there.

Only a few synth bands make it into my Arcadia and I worship the ground they walk(ed) on. They broke out of the box that is electronic music as a whole- a widely unpolitical music genre where I don’t understand the people but I love the music…

Though lately I’ve been listening to Andy Oppenheimer and Oppenheimer Analysis. With poetic yet potent lyrics focused on the Cold War, nuclear arms, power and paranoia, they stand out as having created some of the most beautiful minimal synth-pop music with a great dance sensibility to boot. Andy Oppenheimer, a nuclear expert, created some brilliant songs alone and with Martyn Loyd as Oppenheimer Analysis in the early 1980’s.

Your blood runs cold
When you think you only did what you were told
Look what it leads to the race to the end
The race to the end
They’re running out of lies
Please don’t listen when they try to rationalize
Look what it leads to the race to the end
The race to the end

After all these years
Closer to disaster
It isn’t very clear
Just who is the master
It’s getting harder every day to keep control
Can’t you see the danger getting sold getting sold
Get a hold
Please get a hold
Get a hold get a hold get a hold
Of a world in your hands
A world in your hands
There’s blood on my hands

If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst into the sky
If the radiance of a thousand suns
Were to burst into the sky
That would be like the splendor of the Mighty One
I become Death
Destroyer of Worlds

A short lived yet incredible project. I believe they reunited in 2005 for a spell to do some live shows.
Check them out here: